Here is the important part of MarÃa Isabel Rueda’s interview with Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos in tomorrow’s edition of Semana magazine. Here, Santos says that paramount FARC leader “Manuel Marulanda Vélez” (alias “Tirofijo,” or “Sureshot”) died in late March.
Is it true? Your guess is as good as mine.
MarÃa Isabel Rueda: And where is “Tirofijo“?
Juan Manuel Santos: He must be in hell.M.I.R.: In which hell?
J.M.S: The one where dead criminals go.M.I.R.: Where “Tirofijo” is going…
J.M.S.: The information we have is that he is already gone.M.I.R.: What do you mean, “Tirofijo” died?
J.M.S.: That’s what a source who has never failed us tells us.M.I.R.: “Tirofijo” is dead?
J.M.S.: That is the latest information we have and that we are corroborating.M.I.R.: Can I title this interview, “‘Tirofijo’ is dead”?
J.M.S.: The risk is yours.M.I.R.: And when did he die?
J.M.S.: The intelligence tells us that it was March 26th of this year.M.I.R.: And how did he die?
J.M.S.: We don’t know. During those dates there were three strong bombardments where “Tirofijo” was thought to have been. The guerrillas say it was a heart attack. We have no proof for the one or the other.M.I.R.: And what other information do you have about his death?
J.M.S.: So far we only have those data.M.I.R.: And do you know who is going to replace him?
J.M.S.: Everything indicates that it is Alfonso Cano [FARC secretariat member, head of the group's Western Bloc, a one-time college professor believed to be the guerrillas' chief ideologue].
May 25th, 2008 at 2:50 am
I’d like a body to spit on, but even without it, I’m starting to smell the sweet perfume of victory, the end of a long long long Marxist war of liberation that has killed 40,000 people, with the bloody hands of drug-trafficking Marxists in this armed wing of the Colombian communist party never free again to murder in the name of la revolucion. No more guerrilla in the mountain fantasies a la Castro, only ignominious defeat.
I sense victory, I see the freedom of hostages, the emergence of a celebrated peace. I also see justice on the horizon, truth commissions, jailings, the end of the scourge of Marxist narcoterror and the discrediting of all its enablers. I suspect there are certain Western leftist enablers who don’t sleep well tonight, twitching uncomfortably in what the FARC computer will reveal.
But it’s a victory for the long suffering people of Colombia – the victory of Peace Through Superior Firepower.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:07 am
teleSur has just shown a FARC video where they seemingly confirm it.
This isn’t the end of FARC, but it’s still a turning point.
Personally, I do not regret his passing.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Possibly the most important news of this year, I wonder how it will affect the situation on the battlefield, to die of a heart attack after fighting for sixty years,…quite odd.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
[...] Adam Isaacson, whose translation skills are far better than mine, has kindly provided a transcript of the Semana interview I mentioned yesterday, for the English-only crowd here. [...]
May 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] official government or guerrilla announcement, but from a few answers that Santos tossed off in an interview with Semana magazine reporter MarÃa Isabel Rueda. This earned Santos a rare rebuke from President [...]
June 10th, 2008 at 1:03 am
[...] it was some kind of "gossip", Semana journalist María Isabel Rueda that Tirofijo "must be in hell" during an [...]